No other grape variety is as expressive of the terroir as Riesling: of the quality of the soil, the microclimate of the location, the weather conditions of the year in question and – last but not least – the personality of the winemaker.
All the essential work is done by the vine itself. Our tasks as winegrowers are limited to providing it with gentle support, to harvesting at the perfect moment, and to ensuring the wine’s quality during the fermentation and aging process. This is how great, expressive, dry and unique Rieslings develop. All of them are full of character, be they estate wines or Große Gewächse (premium site wines).
It could, but it does not always have to be Riesling. While we have strongly reduced our product range in the past years in order to focus on the essentials, our sites still yield excellent Pinot Blanc and Scheurebe wines that are much more than mere stopgaps.
In the past, most German wines had to be sweet. Then tables turned and residual sugar was officially frowned upon. Today, we think that the truth – as it so often does – is hiding somewhere near the golden mean, between the two worlds. For instance, fruity wines with more or less natural sweetness can be an excellent culinary accompaniment to ripe cheeses or foods with an intense chili edge. And then they are anything but trivial.
The fine art of producing noble sweet wines has a great tradition in Germany, which is unique in the world. And here, once again, it is mostly Riesling - with its backbone of pronounced acidity as an antagonist to high amounts of residual sugar - that creates fascinating and enormously exciting wines. These are veritable cathedrals of Riesling, multi-layered, dense and intricate, often with the potential to mature for decades.
1 | VDP.GROSSE LAGE®
designates the very best vineyards of Germany, within which the parcels have been narrowly demarcated. On these sites grow unique wines with great aging potential. They are exclusively planted with those varieties best suited to a particular vineyard to ensure the production of great wines. The strictest production criteria guarantee that the peak standards of the VDP.Classification pyramid are met.
2 | VDP.ERSTE LAGE®
designates first-class sites with distinctive properties, providing optimal growing conditions. These vineyards are planted with ideally suited grape varieties. Yields are strictly limited for the sake of quality. History proves that VDP.ERSTE LAGEN© produce wines of exceptional quality.
3 | VDP.ORTSWEINE
originate from the best vineyards of a town or village. They are ambassadors of their terroir. Grape varieties typical of their region and yield restrictions are criteria for wines of this category. VDP.ORTSWEINE provide the link between VDP.GUTSWEINE and wines from top sites.
4 | VDP.GUTSWEINE
VDP.GUTSWEINE are the entry-level to the origin-driven quality hierarchy of the Prädikatsweingüter (Prädikat Wine Estates). You might say that they are a winemaker’s business card. The wines originate from vineyards held by the estate and meet the VDP’s strict quality standards.
